In a previous article, I suggested that family historians can learn a lot to learn from how professional historians undertake their work. Rather than simply collecting names and dates, historians gather evidence, assess how reliable it is, consider the context of the findings, consider alternative explanations, and only then draw conclusions. Family history is no different. Every ancestor’s life is built from dozens of small pieces of evidence, each contributing a little more to the overall picture. The difficulty, of course, is keeping track of it all.
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering where you saw that baptism, whether a burial actually belonged to your ancestor, or why you were convinced somebody was born in one parish rather than another, you’re certainly not alone. Genealogy has a habit of producing far more information than our brains were ever designed to remember.
One of the most useful habits I’ve developed is keeping an evidence matrix for the focus of my research. It sounds rather formal, but in reality it’s simply a table that helps me record what I’ve found, what each record tells me, how confident I am in the information and, perhaps most importantly, what I still need to investigate.
The idea didn’t actually come from family history at all. In my day job, I work in higher education and being evidence-based in my teaching, as well as my research, is a fundamental tenet of my role. When researchers want to understand what is already known about a particular topic, they don’t simply read lots of academic papers and hope they’ll remember everything. Instead, they create structured tables that allow them to compare each study consistently. For every paper they record key information, note its strengths and limitations, identify where studies agree or disagree, and gradually build an overall understanding of the evidence before reaching any conclusions.
As I spent more time researching my own family, it struck me that genealogy isn’t really so different. Each parish register, census return, tax assessment, newspaper report, or will, is simply another piece of evidence. Some sources support one another beautifully. Others contradict each other. Some answer long-standing questions, while others create entirely new ones. It made perfect sense to borrow the same structured approach that researchers use every day and apply it to the family history context.
Building evidence rather than collecting records
One of the biggest changes in my own research came when I stopped treating every record as a discovery in its own right.
Instead, I started asking what contribution that record actually made to the wider picture.
- What exactly does it tell me?
- How reliable is it?
- Does it support what I already know, or challenge it?
- Does it answer a question, or leave me with three more?
An evidence matrix encourages exactly this way of thinking. Rather than simply recording that you’ve found a baptism or a census entry, you’re recording what evidence that source provides and how it fits alongside everything else you’ve already discovered.
Over time, your collection of records becomes something much more valuable: a body of evidence.
John Hardwicke has been an excellent test case
Regular readers will know that I’ve spent, and continue to spend, a considerable amount of time investigating John Hardwicke, an eighteenth-century excise officer who has an impressive talent for refusing to leave a straightforward paper trail. At first glance, the research seemed relatively simple. Then the questions started multiplying. Marriage licences raised one possibility. Parish registers added another. Excise minute books recorded special duties in some years but not others. Land tax records suggested where he was living. Newspaper reports added useful context. Every new source answered one question while creating another.
Without an evidence matrix, I suspect I would have spent much of my time repeatedly looking up the same records because I’d forgotten exactly what they had told me. Instead, every new discovery became another row in the table. Gradually, patterns began to emerge. I could see where multiple independent sources pointed towards the same conclusion. Equally importantly, I could see where the evidence simply wasn’t strong enough yet. That distinction matters.
The most useful column isn’t the evidence
Surprisingly, my favourite column in the entire matrix isn’t the one containing the evidence. It’s the one labelled “Questions Raised”. Every time I discover something interesting, I try to write down what I still don’t know.
If an excise minute book mentions a temporary posting, I ask where records of his ordinary employment might be found. If a marriage licence gives a residence but not a birthplace, I note that as something to investigate. If a burial record seems possible but not proven, I record exactly what evidence would strengthen or weaken that theory.
Those questions gradually become my research plan. Instead of sitting down and wondering what I should search for next, I already have a list waiting for me. Every unanswered question becomes another task, whether that’s checking an original register, looking for land tax records, searching a neighbouring parish or planning a visit to an archive. The evidence itself creates the action list.
It also makes it much easier to change your mind
Family historians sometimes become rather attached to their conclusions. We’ve all invested hours researching somebody before discovering an awkward document that refuses to fit. An evidence matrix makes changing direction much less painful because it keeps the focus firmly on the evidence rather than on the conclusion.
When new information appears, you don’t need to rewrite your entire research from memory. You simply add another piece of evidence and consider how it changes the picture. Sometimes it strengthens your theory. Sometimes it dismantles it completely. Both outcomes move your research forwards.
A surprisingly simple habit
When people begin tracing their family tree, they often assume they need more subscriptions, more certificates or more sophisticated software. Those things certainly have their place, but I would argue that one of the most valuable tools is simply a well-organised spreadsheet. An evidence matrix helps you separate facts from assumptions, keep track of conflicting evidence, recognise patterns, identify gaps in your research and create a clear plan for what to investigate next. More than anything else, it encourages you to think critically about the records you’re finding rather than simply collecting them. Professional historians have been working this way for generations. As family historians, perhaps we should too.
In my next article, I’ll share the evidence matrix I use for my own research, and how to use it. It isn’t especially complicated, but it has become one of the most valuable tools I have. If it can stop just one person from searching the same parish register for the fifth time because they’ve forgotten they already checked it three weeks ago, I’ll consider it a success!
